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I've read this whole situation as a signal to China and other authoritarian regimes that Apple has finally seen diminishing returns from the "Apple is more secu

I've read this whole situation as a signal to China and other authoritarian regimes that Apple has finally seen diminishing returns from the "Apple is more secure" angle and is now looking elsewhere for growth. It's just business.

SquishyPanda23 5y ago
I think there is more going on here. I think what we're seeing is Apple betting on using cryptography as part of the product design phase. Apple devices already do weird things like wake up to announce their physical location so that users can find their devices. The thought of a powered down or suspended laptop waking up to announce its location isn't something I particularly want, but Apple users seem to like it. Anyone who has spent any time on spaces that are strongly encrypted and focused on privacy know how quickly they become havens for the sort of material that Apple doesn't want associated with its brand. How many "Apple protects child predator" news stories do you think Apple can withstand while still remaining a luxury brand? Apples goal here is to have the reputation for end-to-end encryption and privacy while simultaneously not being seen as a phone for child predators. They don't have a lot of options if they want to thread that needle. I've thought about this space quite a bit, and all options suck. Client side scanning is really the only choice with reasonable tradeoffs. The other option is scanning encrypted photos on cloud using secure enclaves to do the scanning. My guess is that when the tech makes that possible Apple will move in that direction. I agree that this isn't the best for privacy nuts like me. But the iPhone isn't a blackphone, it's a luxury handbag. The phone isn't for privacy nerds, the privacy is there to make other mobile OS's look cheap and tacky.
- zionic 5y ago
  This is needless Apple apologetics. They deserve to be raked over the coals for this, there's no world where their current design is a "good" or "right" one. Child abuse is a serious problem, but building a surveillance panopticon is not an acceptable solution to it. Better investment in education, health care, and reporting hotlines are the way forward to stop this issue at its source.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    Right? Should cars have facial recognition cameras so they don't enable child trafficking?
    - nicce 5y ago
      Not relevant example as Apple is only required to stop redistribution of existing material. They are not forced to look for new material.
      - cvwright 5y ago
        But the point is, once you accept something noble and difficult like "preventing CSAM" as your primary overriding goal, then there's nothing that's too far or too extreme if it will help you with your noble goal. Five years ago, the idea of Apple scanning photos on your phone would have been absurd. Five years from now, what will people think about hotels installing AI-powered cameras in every room? The vendor swears they only start recording when they detect an act of abuse. It sounds absurd now, but where do you draw the line?
        nicce 5y ago
        Many (maybe 5) years ago Apple launched Neural Net to categorize your photos and this scans all of them, a lot whether they are in the cloud or not. Difference is, that we don’t know where this information is stored. Still nobody is worried about that. Feature, which allows more than this newly added CSAM functionality. If someone wants to misuse that in hidden, there is no difference of now or future. Because all we have is trust. Speculation suddenly raises, when common politic reasons are mentioned. It does not really matter if the scanning happens on device or iCloud in this situation, because you have to always trust their closed source system. Google has scanned your images since 2009 in the cloud unencrypted, but now when Apple makes situation better, it is suddenly bad. All tools have been out there already. There are no really other options to get more privacy than this, but people refuse to see that. Well, there is voting. Vote people who puts privacy over everything. That would make everything easy.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  Yes, thank you. This is the only theory that explains observed reality. I'd add that they probably consider the scheme to be better than the alternative (which is how others do it, including Google IIRC), namely checking photos once they have been uploaded. They have gone to some lengths to do more on the device instead of uploading user data, in Siri for example, but also Photos.app face recognition etc.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  > I've thought about this space quite a bit, and all options suck... I agree that this isn't the best for privacy nuts like me. But the iPhone isn't a blackphone, it's a luxury handbag. Privacy isn't a toy for nerds, though. It's not even a luxury item. It's a need and a right of all people. There is a good option: keep people's stuff private. It's the only option.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    I'm relatively extremist on privacy and user autonomy in general. But I hesitate to say that privacy is so fundamental that people shouldn't be _allowed_ to decide they're okay with it. It's a while since the ruckus about privacy from techie types has penetrated the public discourse, and I think this is a very good thing. The non-tech-savvy people, if anything, overestimate the degree to which their privacy is compromised, convinced that every sound they make within earshot of their phone is scraped for ad targeting. But not one of the people in my anecdotal dataset change their behavior on this basis, nor even seem to be particularly bothered by it. I don't think you can even chalk this up to technical ignorance. Bush's warrantless wiretapping had something like 40% approval, and that wasn't even transparent or consensual! It really does appear there are a massive amount of people out there who look at the current cost/benefit tradeoff of compromising their privacy and decide that it's worth it. Awareness is still important, but I don't agree with your suggestion that everyone be effectively coerced into accepting the tradeoffs that you or I accept.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      > massive amount of people out there who look at the current cost/benefit tradeoff of compromising their privacy and decide that it's worth it I don't agree with this characterization - it's too willful. To me, it seems more like a helpless coping mechanism. Since they "overestimate the degree to which their privacy is compromised", they resign themselves to not being able to do anything to protect their own privacy. The phone is listening to them, the satellites are tracking them [0], websites are recording them - basically every electronic device they encounter is not under their control. Their privacy is already gone. Then, they watch TV and see actors using surveillance systems to capture Really Bad People. Since they've already resigned themselves to the collection, the only thing they have left is to hope that said surveillance results in things that are good and just. And when you try to bring up real-world problems, they revert to coping mechanisms of how it doesn't bother them - because if it did, they're still ultimately powerless to change anything. To cross this divide, I think we need to give people actionable packaged-up solutions they adopt to protect their privacy. Part of the difficulty is that most people use their phone as their primary communication medium, and the phone ecosystem is a privacy dumpster fire. I don't have a recommendation for increasing phone privacy besides LoS+microg and also stop using your phone so much - do most of your communicating from a real computer running Free software. Incidentally this is why this Apple news is so terrible - they had seemed to plot a course for more user privacy. Even with Apple retaining control, it could have let people see there can be boundaries. But now they've basically thrown away user empowerment in favor of putting a government agent on every phone. And so we're right back to the understanding of "everything I do is surveilled". [0] I'm obviously describing their perspective. I've tried to explain to people that GPS satellites do not themselves track you, but rather let your phone figure out where you are. And by them taking an interest in the software on their phone, they could prevent it tracking their location. But I generally hit a wall of cognitive dissonance where the "satellite tracking" was really just some talking point, rather than something they think they could prevent.
- josteink 5y ago
  > Client side scanning is really the only choice with reasonable tradeoffs. As the guy sitting on the client-side, how about “No”?
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > The other option is scanning encrypted photos on cloud using secure enclaves to do the scanning. This doesn't work because secure enclaves only move trust from the software developer to the hardware manufacturer, who has the code signing keys to update the firmware on the secure enclave. Which in this case would still be Apple, or someone equivalently [un]trustworty and subject to external coercion.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  But many security researchers and analysts seem convinced this system will catch up innocent people. Will it only take a single arrest of someone who happens to get a copy of their iCloud account to their lawyer, instantly proving their innocence before Apple is destroyed? Or will it take two?
swiley 5y ago
Ironically the best alternative comes from an HK company.
- pshirshov 5y ago
  Which one? I mean, could you clarify?
  - swiley 5y ago
    I was thinking of pine64.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      Purism is even a better alternative.
api 5y ago
Yeah, and we have to remember that Americans might not be the true literal-target audience for this. Catching a few CP creeps in the USA might be sort of like a field demonstration of a weapons system. After the demo the system goes on sale to its true customers, namely regimes with "re-education camps" or who like to dispose of critical journalists with bone saws. Many other American companies have done business with totalitarian regimes over the years. Maybe there's too much money in that market for Apple to pass up. Given the growth of totalitarian strong men across the world it's probably a growth market these days. Payment may not be overt. It could also come in the form of access to markets. The deal might be that Apple must demonstrate the ability to help a regime hunt down dissidents before it can sell domestically, or they could be offered a break from otherwise onerous import or sales taxes.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Why rely on a foreign business when you have Wechat? Or maybe better worded, why even need it?
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    What about the Saudis? They don't have WeChat.
m-p-3 5y ago
There's no way the Chinese govt won't abuse it to track down whistleblowers (ie: leaked document pictures) or dissidents who has pictures that are unapproved by the authorities (Winnie the Pooh memes, Tiananmen Square, etc).
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  > There's no way Seems like there is a way after all: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/08/09/apple-csam-faq https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/08/09/apple-csam-faq "Could governments force Apple to add non-CSAM images to the hash list? Apple will refuse any such demands. Apple’s CSAM detection capability is built solely to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos that have been identified by experts at NCMEC and other child safety groups. We have faced demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users before, and have steadfastly refused those demands. We will continue to refuse them in the future. Let us be clear, this technology is limited to detecting CSAM stored in iCloud and we will not accede to any government’s request to expand it." (Reminder: if you don't trust what they say, you can't trust that they haven't been doing this for years already).
ffiirree 5y ago
But what's insane is that the "apple is more secure" billboards are currently up around my city.

SquishyPanda23 5y ago

I think there is more going on here. I think what we're seeing is Apple betting on using cryptography as part of the product design phase. Apple devices already do weird things like wake up to announce their physical location so that users can find their devices. The thought of a powered down or suspended laptop waking up to announce its location isn't something I particularly want, but Apple users seem to like it. Anyone who has spent any time on spaces that are strongly encrypted and focused on privacy know how quickly they become havens for the sort of material that Apple doesn't want associated with its brand. How many "Apple protects child predator" news stories do you think Apple can withstand while still remaining a luxury brand? Apples goal here is to have the reputation for end-to-end encryption and privacy while simultaneously not being seen as a phone for child predators. They don't have a lot of options if they want to thread that needle. I've thought about this space quite a bit, and all options suck. Client side scanning is really the only choice with reasonable tradeoffs. The other option is scanning encrypted photos on cloud using secure enclaves to do the scanning. My guess is that when the tech makes that possible Apple will move in that direction. I agree that this isn't the best for privacy nuts like me. But the iPhone isn't a blackphone, it's a luxury handbag. The phone isn't for privacy nerds, the privacy is there to make other mobile OS's look cheap and tacky.

zionic 5y ago
This is needless Apple apologetics. They deserve to be raked over the coals for this, there's no world where their current design is a "good" or "right" one. Child abuse is a serious problem, but building a surveillance panopticon is not an acceptable solution to it. Better investment in education, health care, and reporting hotlines are the way forward to stop this issue at its source.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  Right? Should cars have facial recognition cameras so they don't enable child trafficking?
  - nicce 5y ago
    Not relevant example as Apple is only required to stop redistribution of existing material. They are not forced to look for new material.
    - cvwright 5y ago
      But the point is, once you accept something noble and difficult like "preventing CSAM" as your primary overriding goal, then there's nothing that's too far or too extreme if it will help you with your noble goal. Five years ago, the idea of Apple scanning photos on your phone would have been absurd. Five years from now, what will people think about hotels installing AI-powered cameras in every room? The vendor swears they only start recording when they detect an act of abuse. It sounds absurd now, but where do you draw the line?
      - nicce 5y ago
        Many (maybe 5) years ago Apple launched Neural Net to categorize your photos and this scans all of them, a lot whether they are in the cloud or not. Difference is, that we don’t know where this information is stored. Still nobody is worried about that. Feature, which allows more than this newly added CSAM functionality. If someone wants to misuse that in hidden, there is no difference of now or future. Because all we have is trust. Speculation suddenly raises, when common politic reasons are mentioned. It does not really matter if the scanning happens on device or iCloud in this situation, because you have to always trust their closed source system. Google has scanned your images since 2009 in the cloud unencrypted, but now when Apple makes situation better, it is suddenly bad. All tools have been out there already. There are no really other options to get more privacy than this, but people refuse to see that. Well, there is voting. Vote people who puts privacy over everything. That would make everything easy.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
Yes, thank you. This is the only theory that explains observed reality. I'd add that they probably consider the scheme to be better than the alternative (which is how others do it, including Google IIRC), namely checking photos once they have been uploaded. They have gone to some lengths to do more on the device instead of uploading user data, in Siri for example, but also Photos.app face recognition etc.
JasonFruit 5y ago
> I've thought about this space quite a bit, and all options suck... I agree that this isn't the best for privacy nuts like me. But the iPhone isn't a blackphone, it's a luxury handbag. Privacy isn't a toy for nerds, though. It's not even a luxury item. It's a need and a right of all people. There is a good option: keep people's stuff private. It's the only option.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  I'm relatively extremist on privacy and user autonomy in general. But I hesitate to say that privacy is so fundamental that people shouldn't be _allowed_ to decide they're okay with it. It's a while since the ruckus about privacy from techie types has penetrated the public discourse, and I think this is a very good thing. The non-tech-savvy people, if anything, overestimate the degree to which their privacy is compromised, convinced that every sound they make within earshot of their phone is scraped for ad targeting. But not one of the people in my anecdotal dataset change their behavior on this basis, nor even seem to be particularly bothered by it. I don't think you can even chalk this up to technical ignorance. Bush's warrantless wiretapping had something like 40% approval, and that wasn't even transparent or consensual! It really does appear there are a massive amount of people out there who look at the current cost/benefit tradeoff of compromising their privacy and decide that it's worth it. Awareness is still important, but I don't agree with your suggestion that everyone be effectively coerced into accepting the tradeoffs that you or I accept.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    > massive amount of people out there who look at the current cost/benefit tradeoff of compromising their privacy and decide that it's worth it I don't agree with this characterization - it's too willful. To me, it seems more like a helpless coping mechanism. Since they "overestimate the degree to which their privacy is compromised", they resign themselves to not being able to do anything to protect their own privacy. The phone is listening to them, the satellites are tracking them [0], websites are recording them - basically every electronic device they encounter is not under their control. Their privacy is already gone. Then, they watch TV and see actors using surveillance systems to capture Really Bad People. Since they've already resigned themselves to the collection, the only thing they have left is to hope that said surveillance results in things that are good and just. And when you try to bring up real-world problems, they revert to coping mechanisms of how it doesn't bother them - because if it did, they're still ultimately powerless to change anything. To cross this divide, I think we need to give people actionable packaged-up solutions they adopt to protect their privacy. Part of the difficulty is that most people use their phone as their primary communication medium, and the phone ecosystem is a privacy dumpster fire. I don't have a recommendation for increasing phone privacy besides LoS+microg and also stop using your phone so much - do most of your communicating from a real computer running Free software. Incidentally this is why this Apple news is so terrible - they had seemed to plot a course for more user privacy. Even with Apple retaining control, it could have let people see there can be boundaries. But now they've basically thrown away user empowerment in favor of putting a government agent on every phone. And so we're right back to the understanding of "everything I do is surveilled". [0] I'm obviously describing their perspective. I've tried to explain to people that GPS satellites do not themselves track you, but rather let your phone figure out where you are. And by them taking an interest in the software on their phone, they could prevent it tracking their location. But I generally hit a wall of cognitive dissonance where the "satellite tracking" was really just some talking point, rather than something they think they could prevent.
josteink 5y ago
> Client side scanning is really the only choice with reasonable tradeoffs. As the guy sitting on the client-side, how about “No”?
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> The other option is scanning encrypted photos on cloud using secure enclaves to do the scanning. This doesn't work because secure enclaves only move trust from the software developer to the hardware manufacturer, who has the code signing keys to update the firmware on the secure enclave. Which in this case would still be Apple, or someone equivalently [un]trustworty and subject to external coercion.
merpnderp 5y ago
But many security researchers and analysts seem convinced this system will catch up innocent people. Will it only take a single arrest of someone who happens to get a copy of their iCloud account to their lawyer, instantly proving their innocence before Apple is destroyed? Or will it take two?

swiley 5y ago

Ironically the best alternative comes from an HK company.

pshirshov 5y ago
Which one? I mean, could you clarify?
- swiley 5y ago
  I was thinking of pine64.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Purism is even a better alternative.

api 5y ago

Yeah, and we have to remember that Americans might not be the true literal-target audience for this. Catching a few CP creeps in the USA might be sort of like a field demonstration of a weapons system. After the demo the system goes on sale to its true customers, namely regimes with "re-education camps" or who like to dispose of critical journalists with bone saws. Many other American companies have done business with totalitarian regimes over the years. Maybe there's too much money in that market for Apple to pass up. Given the growth of totalitarian strong men across the world it's probably a growth market these days. Payment may not be overt. It could also come in the form of access to markets. The deal might be that Apple must demonstrate the ability to help a regime hunt down dissidents before it can sell domestically, or they could be offered a break from otherwise onerous import or sales taxes.

Aperocky 5y ago
Why rely on a foreign business when you have Wechat? Or maybe better worded, why even need it?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  What about the Saudis? They don't have WeChat.

m-p-3 5y ago

There's no way the Chinese govt won't abuse it to track down whistleblowers (ie: leaked document pictures) or dissidents who has pictures that are unapproved by the authorities (Winnie the Pooh memes, Tiananmen Square, etc).

jodrellblank 5y ago
> There's no way Seems like there is a way after all: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/08/09/apple-csam-faq https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/08/09/apple-csam-faq "Could governments force Apple to add non-CSAM images to the hash list? Apple will refuse any such demands. Apple’s CSAM detection capability is built solely to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos that have been identified by experts at NCMEC and other child safety groups. We have faced demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users before, and have steadfastly refused those demands. We will continue to refuse them in the future. Let us be clear, this technology is limited to detecting CSAM stored in iCloud and we will not accede to any government’s request to expand it." (Reminder: if you don't trust what they say, you can't trust that they haven't been doing this for years already).

ffiirree 5y ago

But what's insane is that the "apple is more secure" billboards are currently up around my city.